Post BfA Horde in a Nutshell

what about anduin? and also, pretty sure that jaina had a friendship with thrall,she even go as a diplomat after the whratgate incident, hell, she and anduin are there in orgrimmar after saurfang’s death.

Anduin runs into issues with rank and title. There’s no longer a Horde equivalent to the High King position, so there’s no one he can really meet with as a legitimate equal at this point in time. Also, his role with the Saurfang rebellion would make it feel at least partially like he’s there more to check up and supervise things than anything.

Jaina’s in a similar position - she’s been elevated so much at this point that, again, there’s not really a Horde equivalent to her. Also, with her legacy, it would still come across as enforcement / supervision more than anything.

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Well, there’s Tyrathan Khort … but first, he’s not any sort of official diplomat, and second, he’s from a novel, so a lot of players would be scratching their heads wondering who he is.

I’m sure Jaina makes trips to Orgrimmar late at night to see Thrall.

For diplomatic reasons of course.

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He’s in the game in the Hunter class hall and he shows up at Vol’jin’s funeral but he probably still doesn’t have enough in game stuff to be known to most players.

I could see them getting away with using Velen if they hadn’t just used the (AU) Draenei as a means to give us the Mag’har.

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Yeah I have no idea who that human is.

Velen’s in a very odd situation. They’ve basically written him as a neutral party for the Horde and absolutely willing to rise above faction conflict for the greater good, but the massive caveat with this is that he (and the standard Draenei) are only ever present in the story when both the Light and Legion are involved. I legitimately don’t know how they’d approach writing him without one of those themes present. Among other things, I don’t think the standard Draenei did anything in BfA. The Lightforged did, but that was with Turalyon leading them.

Did Velen even say anything at all in BfA?

Maraad might have worked, but he’s dead. Shame too, because he’d be a good fit for whatever Mag’har shenanigans might come in the future.

Anduin would work somewhat but there is always the problem with Anduin that he is less than an open minded potential friend and more of a moral guidance councilor here to teach the savage horde how to be good people.

As for Jaina, I think that might be hard to sell to the Zandalari. ‘Sure she lead a devastating attack on their city while they were still reeling from a civil war and an old god outbreak and sure she killed Talanji’s father but she is totally cool now right?’

Anduin is closest to the a Horde equivalent of Baine but he at least showed some proactive interest in fighting for the Alliance in, well, ever. I am yet to see an example of Baine putting the Horde’s interests ahead of the Alliance’s except in circumstances where he is pretty much forced into it and even then he tends to be extremely reluctant.

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Velen’s probably the closest you could get but that’d be a bit awkward with the mag’har.

Thinking more on Velen, he’s the type of character I could see hosting, leading, and mediating peace talks between both factions - as a neutral third party. I have trouble seeing him as an actual diplomat for the Alliance though. He’s never really come across as really invested in the Alliance and its affairs (or Azeroth’s affairs in general, other than driving back the Legion).

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It’s because hes intoxicated and vibing.

Why would Alliance send diplomats when Horde is incapable of diplomacy? :thinking:

Baine was perfectly willing to negotiate. The Horde has a bunch of ambassadors in Zandalar.
The problem is the contrived way Sylvanas was handed control and remained with it for so long and would shut down any diplomacy she doesn’t order herself.
Trying to assess the morality and ways of the the Horde when things are bent to the plot Blizzard intends is a fools errand. They decided the faction war will be about the Horde being wrong to fight it, making a Gul’dan out of her without the proper reasons she succeeded in going from untrusted to loyalty of the people. The genocide isn’t really brought up at all in most of Horde content. It’s not just brushed off as the deaths being acceptable but rather ignored in it’s happening or full implications.

Baine didn’t negotiate anything and warcraft lore proves the Horde is incapable of diplomacy.

Orcish culture does not really have the concept of diplomacy built in is the thing, and Horde culture is largely modeled off of Orcish culture. Draenor was a world where might made right, and diplomacy featured beating the crap out of your enemies until they surrendered to you. That remains the first impulse of most orcs outside of a few unusual cases like Thrall.

Them doing away with the institution of warchief is a good sign of orcish culture no longer having such a stranglehold on the thinking of the horde.

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Ironic coming from the Alliance who murdered the Forsaken diplomats instead of talking to them.

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The ones that murdered Garithos after he helped them reconquer Lordaeron?

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“lets talk with the literal monsters who destroyed lordaeron”

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“The crown prince of Lordaeron told us to”

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Technically those diplomats with Zandalar all got sacrificed to the void lords by the alliance player so I wouldn’t count on them.

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That wasn’t why the forsaken were killed. The Alliance didn’t know jack about what had happened in Lordaeron at the time as I understand it. Anduin is pretty specific in BtS that they were killed because they were undead rather than anything they had done.

Also I might be remembering wrong but wasn’t Garithos the puppet of a Dreadlord by the time the Forsaken got involved and free him. It’s not like he had a great deal of options himself at that point.

The orcish clans dealt with diplomacy on a regular basis. They had a yearly gathering between the clans to discuss issues between the clans. It was at one such meeting that Durotan and Orgrim met.

We also see Horde diplomats quite often dealing with other races in WoW. The Horde allied with the Tuskar and the Tuanka early in arriving in Northrend in Wrath and sent diplomats to the Dragonflights. Frankly the Horde was more diplomatic with the natives of Northrend than the Alliance is. In the Barrens the horde targets the most militant Quillboar leaders in the hopes of being able to negotiate with the more moderate ones when the ones advocating conflict are silenced.

The Horde engages in plenty of Diplomacy. How do you think they got the BEs to join? There are literally Horde diplomats wondering around the streets of Silvermoon still.

They had also had reasonably decent relations with the Draenei prior to the rise of the Horde. Hell the concept of a Warchief only came into existence with the rise of the Horde because of the need to have a unified leader commanding the Horde’s armies against the Draenei.

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